Barbers Point NAS

Rising from the ashes of the Pearl Harbor attack, Barbers Point Naval Air Station would become a major staging point for US Navy aircraft for the war in the Pacific, culminating with the surrender of the Empire of Japan. With the end of World War II in the Pacific and throughout the Cold War, Barbers Point would be home base for the US Navy’s fleet of maritime patrol aircraft that hunted the growing threat of Soviet submarines prowling the vast Pacific. From 1942 until its closing in 1999, Barbers Point was the US Navy’s only naval air station in the Pacific.

Brad Sekigawa is a professional model maker and business owner for more than 25 years; his work can be viewed at several museums in Hawai’i. He also serves as historian at the Naval Air Museum Barbers Point. Brad Hayes is the executive director for Naval Air Museum Barbers Point. Coming from an old Hawaiian family, he also served in the US Marine Corps in the mid-1990s. Drawing from archival photographs and from private collections from veterans who served proudly at Barbers Point, the authors have put together a small history of a famous landmark in Hawai’i.